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The Art of China

The Art of China is a three-part BBC documentary series hosted by Andrew Graham-Dixon, exploring the art of China from ancient times to the present. Andrew Graham-Dixon travels around China to uncover what art tells us about
the history and people of China. He visits the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China and looks at the Terracotta Army. He visits the Dunhuang caves of which the paintings and sculptures tell the impact of the arrival of Buddhism from India.
Andrew travels to the Yellow mountains in southern China to understand the power of Chinese landscape painting. Finally, traveling the urban landscape of Beijing, Andrew looks at the influence of Communism on the modern art of China.

Episode 1 - Ancient Chinese Art

Episode 1 - Ancient Chinese Art
Andrew Graham-Dixon pieces together the spectacular recent discoveries of ancient art that are redefining China's understanding of its origins. Andrew visits the tomb of the first emperor and comes face to face with the Terracotta Army. He looks at the impact of the arrival of Buddhism from India on the paintings and sculptures of the Dunhuang caves.

Episode 2 - From the 10th to the 15th Century
Andrew Graham-Dixon travels to the Yellow mountains in southern China to understand the power of Chinese landscape painting. The period from the 10th to the 15th century - from the Song to the Ming dynasties - was the golden age of art in China.

Episode 3 - From Imperial to Modern
Andrew Graham-Dixon charts the journey from imperial to modern - the glorious rise and calamitous fall of China's last dynasty. It was an age of crisis, which ultimately led to bloody revolution and rebirth. After tyrant Mao's Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square, does its new art reveal a different side to the modern China we think we know?

Related Links

Chinese Art - wikipedia
Chinese art has arguably the oldest continuous tradition in the world, and is marked by an unusual degree of continuity within, and consciousness of, that tradition, lacking an equivalent to the Western collapse and gradual recovery of classical styles.

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